Bill would speed doctor discipline in MO

Missouri regulators would have more authority to suspend dangerous doctors, and patients would be able to better research physicians, if bills filed in the state Legislature become law. At a hearing to introduce legislation in the state Senate this week, the agency that licenses and regulates doctors -- the Board of Registration for the Healing Arts -- said it supported the effort to reform the state's lax, secretive system of physician discipline. A news organization testified in favor of greater transparency. A doctors' group chafed at one key provision of the bill that would give the board the ability to issue fines. Last year, a Post-Dispatch investigation into patient safety in Missouri showed that the healing arts board is one of the nation's weakest and least transparent.

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, which has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits over the past five years, has boosted the pay of board members and top executives while sticking...